Sensoryspecific

Sensory-specific is an adjective used in psychology and neuroscience to describe phenomena, representations, or responses that are tied to a particular sensory modality or to a specific feature of a stimulus, rather than being general across senses or nonspecific. The term is applied across several domains to indicate that effects depend on the sense involved—such as vision, audition, touch, taste, or olfaction—or on properties such as wavelength, pitch, intensity, or quality.

In sensory-specific adaptation, a repeated presentation of a given sensory feature leads to a diminished neural or perceptual response that is largely confined to that feature, with less pronounced adaptation to dissimilar features. In sensory-specific satiety, the pleasantness and desirability of a food decline as its sensory properties are consumed, while other foods remain appealing, helping to terminate meals.

In neural coding, sensory-specific neurons or receptive fields respond preferentially to particular modalities or stimulus features, forming organized maps and feature-selective processing in sensory cortices. Experimental methods include psychophysical testing, electrophysiology, and functional imaging to assess specificity across conditions.

Limitations include the pervasive role of multisensory integration, attention, and context, which can blur strict modality-specific effects. The concept of sensory-specific processing complements broader theories of generalized arousal and non-specific adaptational effects in perception.

See also: sensory adaptation, sensory-specific satiety, neural tuning.